Effective merchandising in hardware stores means putting as much merchandise as possible into the floor space available. Typically in a hardware store there are bins of loose nails, screws or the like. A typical example of a nail bin display is of the style having round dish-shaped bins rotatably mounted on a pole. Other examples of display containers are box-like containers manufactured by Stanley.TM. and sold as Stanley.TM. Merchandising Systems. Typically these Stanley.TM. bins are free-standing or possibly stackable one on top of another. Usually they are placed side-by-side on a rock and the rock mounted to a wall. These bins do not interlock when placed side-by-side. However, interlocking vertical columns may be made of such bins. The present invention makes more effective use of merchandise display space than either the rotatable circular bins or the Stanley.TM. bins by providing box-like containers which interlock vertically, side-to-side, and side-to-back to form a densely packed merchandising shelving unit.
The inventor is also aware of U.S. Pat. No. 3,851,936 which issued on Dec. 3, 1974 to Muller for an invention entitled Attachment Device for Modular Units. This patent teaches modular front-loading cabinets where the side walls of the modular units are configured to provide interlocking surfaces. The interlocking surfaces have wedge-shaped raised and recessed portions aligned front-to-back on the side walls of the modular units. Raised portions interlock into recessed portions correspondingly placed on adjacent units so as to interlock such units side-to-side. The modular units may also be similarly interlocked vertically. Again the wedge-shaped raised and recessed portions on the top and bottom surfaces of the units are aligned from front-to-back and lock the modular units relative to one another. The Muller system is rather inflexible in that no provision is made for mounting the modular units back-to-back or back-to-side. Thus each column or wall of such units must stand alone and cannot rely on interlocking in a back-to-back or back-to-side orientation to other such columns for added stability. The configuration of interlocking horizontally-oriented wedges further makes dis-assembly and re-assembly, so as to vary the shape or size of a particular merchandising display, quite difficult because the modular units can not be lifted straight out of the display but must be translated horizontally and then only by disassembly starting at one end of the display and working inwards removing one unit at a time.
What is required is a front-loading interlocking modular display unit which may be built up from individual front-opening modular traits into a merchandising display by interlocking columns of such units side-to-side, back-to-back, and back-to-side, such a merchandising display adapted to be disassembled in part and reassembled without the need to completely dismantle the display.